Damn Cold Night
by porcelaindakota
Summary: Set after S5. When life with the Titans begins to fall apart, Starfire finds herself wishing things could just be normal again... Rated Teen because I can. Inspired by 'I'm With You' by Avril Lavigne.


_Well, like everything else I do, this is pretty extemporaneous. I just got the song 'I'm with You' by Avril Lavigne on my iPod, and thus came the inspiration for this story. This will most likely be a one-shot, unless…well, I'd need a ton of people screaming for a plot, and then I'd actually have to think one up. Toodles!_

_Oh, and this is all in Star's POV:_

* * *

The night is dark and oppressive around me, and I pull the faded sweatshirt tighter around my shoulders and brace myself against the bitter cold. It is late February; the temperature, excluding the windchill, is a balmy 7 degrees.

Rain starts in softly around me, cascading off of the bridge in a somber display of hidden emotions as I lean against a concrete piling, trying to think warm thoughts. After a few moments, however, I am soaked to the bone, shivering discreetly, trying to pretend I'm not on the verge of getting hypothermia. I begin to consider giving up my endeavor and return to the Tower, and pretend that none of this has ever happened, to retreat back into my bubble and imagine the world back when I wasn't questioning all of it. I sigh, staring out onto the bay, not really seeing.

I reflect on the Titans' lives since we returned home. After we had defeated the Brotherhood of Evil, things had returned to normal, if only for a short time. We went home; we fought cheesier bad guys than ever, ate even cheesier pizza. We fully fell into our façade—we fooled ourselves into believing that there weren't problems, that the tiny cracks that had always existed between us weren't widening into impassable abysses. Gradually, however, we stopped… for what reasons, I really do not know. Perhaps we finally began to understand the futility of the situation… I like to think that we were smart enough to realize what was happening. For whatever the reasons, we all began to withdraw from each other, and a sense of isolation sank in over us. It finally became impossible to ignore: the formerly infallible Teen Titans were falling apart at the seams.

The others began to argue with each other regularly. Not just tiny tiffs about the toenail clippers or the TV channel—it could start out that simple, but soon both parties involved would fall into a storming rage. As for me, I tried to stay clear of it. I tried to keep going on as if we were all still friends, as if we all still liked each other. I walked Silkie and made dinner and still held a Rek'mas celebration annually. But in the end, none of it worked, and I was so emotionally spent that it stopped mattering. I had burned so much energy trying to reach out to my friends that I had none left to share.

I then concentrated on keeping myself happy; I took myself out to an expensive dinner, and, once, checked myself into a spa. I figured that if my friends were falling apart, I would have to keep clear of the rubble. And, by staying away from them, I kept myself from crashing down with them.

We may live in the same home, but my friends and I no longer know each other. Without their influence, I have begun to investigate the world by myself—I had to learn for myself why things couldn't be the same, why the world seemed to be so dark and abysmal.

That is why I'm here tonight… this is one of my favorite spots in the entire city. This bridge at night is…mystical. I can look out over the entire city and watch the tiny lights and muse about my life.

Tonight I'm wondering if any of them even realize I'm missing, if they even care to figure out where I've gone. The few times I've left, they have usually noticed after an hour or so that I'm missing. Then they come for me, and I get the standard lecture: "Star, man, you scared us"; "That was dangerous, Starfire. You shouldn't have left without telling me"; there's more, but I don't feel like remembering it. I have been out for four hours now, and it is nearing midnight—they have not come for me, or called even once. But, strangely, for the first time since I've begun my nightly expeditions, I don't care. It makes me feel liberated, and thinking of returning to the Tower makes me feel strangely heavy and bereft…I wonder if I will return at all. I picture myself living on this bridge forever, staring out into the night sky and watching the lights of the city, and maybe even learn to dance in the rain again.

"Hey," a familiar voice says from behind me. I turn with a half-effort and meet the masked eyes of Red X, who is dangling upside down from one of the bridge's majestic spiraling pillars.

"Hello," I return, and turn back to the bay. I can feel his eyes on my back, and I can hear him when he disentangles himself from the wires and drops back to the ground, nearly silently. But I still hear it.

His hand alights on my shoulder. It feels strange to have someone touch me, after months of standing apart from the others in the Tower. It is a welcome strange, though, and I lean into it like a black-and-white photograph—beautiful and aged…bittersweet and forgotten. I smile slightly, in spite of myself, and decide to speak to him: "How did you find me here?" I say quietly, my eyes still glued to the water below.

As he answers, I turn to face him, noticing of how the rain slips off of his mask so silently, and how he is drenched, like me. I notice for the first time that he is just a few inches taller than me, and that his chest is broad and muscular. But he ignores the question, instead choosing to ask—and answer—one of his own. "I'm surprised you haven't blasted me yet," X says, but he cannot help but grin as he says it. "Pleasantly surprised, though."

"I am finding…" I choose my words carefully; I can't let him see that I, too, am surprised by my lack of hostility. "I am finding that I am less inclined to the lifestyle of the superhero…I am finding myself less enchanted with the fight. I am tired." My voice is strangely muted, but it sounds more natural than anything I've said to the Titans for months.

He nods understandingly. "I know… when you see too much fighting, it stops exciting you," he slips his arm around me, and, when a year ago I would have instantly thrown him off and prepared to fight, instead I now allow it, and find myself…pleased by it…

"I do not understand," I mumble, and he looks down to me, surprised.

X does not verbally ask anything, but his eyes, piercing through their mask, say it all. "I do not understand… why everything is so different now," I say bitterly, and my throat closes at the admission. In the back of my mind, I am wondering why I have chosen to share my thoughts with this…this _criminal,_ when there were so many others whom I could speak with…Robin had always been particularly helpful. But in my mind, a tiny, sardonic voice repeats, _used to. _

It is true, though; I really do not understand why the Titans have to be drifting apart, why life has to change so drastically, why I have this gaping hole in my chest that won't go away and why I can't be _happy _again. I want to laugh, I want to hug Robin and blush, I want to get my nails done with Raven, I want to teach Cyborg Tamaranian, and I want to play with Silkie with Beast Boy. But no matter how hard I wish for these things, none of it ever happens. My friends are not the same people, and without them, who am I? For the several years since I met them, my friends have defined me, simply by being themselves. And I had never understood this bond until it was gone.

"The Tower—" I am beginning to gush and to break like a dam with a leak in it—"It is always so quiet! No one speaks to one another anymore, my friends act like they do not even know each other, and it is all so depressing! I find myself thoroughly depressed by it all," I whisper now, feeling myself close to tears for the first time in months. "Before, my friends and I were all…great friends. We were like a family, and at times, it nearly killed us when one of us had to leave, even for a short while. But now…when I leave, no one notices! I have been gone for _four hours,_" my hands ball into fists and I punch the concrete piling. "Four hours, and no one has noticed," I am starting to cry now, hot, painful tears that seem to scald my cheeks as they run down my face.

Suddenly, X wraps his arms around me, and I sag into him. I feel a strange trembling in the pit of my stomach, and it spreads upward to the rest of my body, and I am shaking in X's arms. It suddenly occurs to me that this isn't the X that I have fought and pinned me against a wall and tried to kiss me. This X is different, just as the Titans and I are different.

"I only steal now," he explains softly, on the spur of the moment, "to live."

I shake my head, droplets of water flying out from my wet hair. "You do not have to explain to me—" He places his hand over my mouth.

"Yes," he says. "I have this feeling…that I do." X steps away from me, facing out over the bay, just as I have done. "The Brotherhood of Evil came after me, gave me an ultimatum: join or die. I told them I preferred to work alone," his head is tilted away from mine, and the sliver of a moon still hanging in the sky just barely illuminates the curve of his face. "They didn't like my answer, and came after me. I just managed to escape, but I was hurt…that was when I decided I was done with being a real criminal." I nod, somehow understanding what he says—deep down, he is not a vicious murderer, like many of the criminals we have fought. He is just getting by in the only way he knows how.

"Is life with the Titans really that bad?" he asks. I nod, not willing to give a more detailed answer. He thinks for a moment, and then, seemingly on a moment's thought, sits down…right in the middle of a puddle. I fight back a giggle as water begins to soak into his uniform. He smirks at me, a very nice, comical grin. "Hey, I'm wet anyway, right?" I nod and sit next to him, also disregarding the falling water.

"What are you going to do?" X asks gently, slowly and cautiously prodding me for an answer.

I pause for a moment before I give it. "I…I do not know. I am considering leaving the Titans. I have no home there," I once again am wondering why I am telling him all of this.

He seems to digest my answer, and is even deeper in thought, gazing out over the bay. Thunder cracks overhead, and the rain strengthens. Once again I pull my sweatshirt tighter around me, and I glance down at the waterlogged jeans I am wearing. I ventured outside in civilian clothes; it was much easier to think without fanboys following me. I mentally smiled; that was one thing that had certainly not changed.

X turns back to me now, a strange, almost hopeful expression on his face. "I have an idea," he says slowly, his eyes never leaving mine. I have the uncanny feeling I am seeing his eyes, too.

"What is it?" I ask. I am almost excited…almost.

He leans back, slipping his hands around his bent knees. He looks at his feet, suddenly bashful. "You could come with me." His voice is so low I can barely hear it.

"I do not know you," I say, quickly and brusquely, before I have time to think of a less blunt answer. I barely know him, and he is a criminal, not someone I could blindly run away with. He is most likely not my happily ever after.

He looks back at me. "Do you even know yourself?"

This stops me dead in my tracks. Once again, my mind is working double time. I am wondering how my life could get any worse, if living under X's wing would really be so bad. And I wonder if I do really know myself, and, if I don't—how can I know what I want? I am still trying to see myself in life without the Titans…maybe he can help me. X, in the few years I've known him, has always been independent and headstrong, has always looked out for himself. I realize now that this is what I need to do—learn how to chisel out my own life, just for me. I need to learn how to live without my friends. They have forgotten me, anyhow.

He extends his hand, and I take it…

_

* * *

Ah, yes…don't you love my random writings? I know it's kinda whacked, but…whatever. I liked it. (Except that there wasn't much Rob/Star…) Please review, just to tell me if it was okay or not, tell me what was not-so-okay, etc., etc. And, please review some of my other stories if you liked this one!_

_-sugarland31_

_P.S.: Yes, I know I should be updating Ace in the Hole or Written in the Stars, or Endgame, as several people have reminded me. My problem is that when something like this hits me…I can't really get anything else done. But I have a four day weekend, so perhaps later…Oh, and here's the lyrics to the song, "I'm With You," that this was inspired by:_

_I'm standing on the bridge  
I'm waiting in the dark  
I thought that you'd be here by now  
There's nothing but the rain  
No footsteps on the ground  
I'm listening but there's no sound_

Isn't anyone tryin' to find me?  
Won't somebody come take me home?  
It's a damn cold night  
Trying to figure out this life  
Won't you take me by the hand  
Take me somewhere new  
I don't know who you are  
But I... I'm with you  
I'm with you...mmm

I'm looking for a place  
I'm searching for a face  
Is anybody here I know?  
'Cause nothing's going right  
And everything's a mess  
And no one likes to be alone

Isn't anyone tryin' to find me?  
Won't somebody come take me home?  
It's a damn cold night  
Trying to figure out this life  
Won't you take me by the hand  
Take me somewhere new  
I don't know who you are  
But I... I'm with you  
I'm with you...yeah yeah oh

Why is everything so confusing  
Maybe I'm just out of my mind  
Yeah yeah yeah...yeah yeah, yeah yeah, yeah yeah, yeah

It's a damn cold night  
Trying to figure out this life  
Won't you take me by the hand  
Take me somewhere new  
I don't know who you are  
But I... I'm with you  
I'm with you...


End file.
